In the Earth4All narrative, poverty is not a matter of individual failure or unfortunate circumstance; it is the predictable outcome of economic rules, institutions and power structures that prioritise growth at all costs, concentrate wealth and ignore human rights and planetary boundaries.
This was the central message in our chapter on economic systems change that we were invited to contribute to the UN-backed Roadmap to Eradicate Poverty Beyond Growth, led by Olivier De Schutter in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.
The Roadmap begins from a simple premise: moving beyond growth does not mean stopping economic activity. It means asking a different question, namely what type of economic activity serves poverty eradication, human rights, redistribution and planetary stability, and what kind undermines them?
Challenging the growth narrative
For decades, the dominant story has been that if GDP grows, poverty will eventually fall, public revenues will increase, and redistribution can be dealt with later. Growth has been treated as the precondition for justice, rather than something that must itself be governed by justice. The Roadmap challenges that false narrative. It confronts the failures of growth-first orthodoxy, the ecological damage it has driven, and the way it has deepened inequality and eroded democratic decision-making.
At its core, the Roadmap is a practical and normative blueprint that re‑centres human rights, planetary boundaries and redistribution. It asks what governments and international institutions would have to do differently if poverty eradication were treated not as a residual outcome of growth, but as a central pre-condition.
Five foundations for eradicating poverty beyond growth
The Roadmap is built on five foundations that together mark a decisive break with business-as-usual.
First, it is explicitly rights-based. Poverty is framed as a failure of systems and public choices, not of individuals. This shifts the focus from “targeting the poor” to transforming the institutions that produce deprivation in the first place.
Second, it is multidimensional. It looks beyond income to the full set of conditions that shape people’s lives: access to services, social protection, decent work, care, housing, food, land, health, education and political voice. Poverty is understood as a denial of capabilities and rights across many domains, not just a lack of cash.
Third, redistribution is treated as a structural design principle, not an afterthought. Eradicating poverty requires confronting inequality, wealth concentration and the legal and fiscal rules that allow resources and power to accumulate at the top.
Fourth, credible anti-poverty strategies must tackle ecological drivers rather than rely on them for short-term growth.
And fifth, it asks what changes are needed in fiscal systems, financial systems, production systems, governance and international cooperation to make poverty eradication structurally possible.
It is this systemic ambition that directly links to the rejection of growth‑first orthodoxy – and to Earth4All’s contribution.
Three areas for reform
In our chapter on economic systems change, we assert that poverty eradication is best achieved in those economic systems that do not treat GDP growth as the dominant policy objective.
We concentrate on three broad reform areas.
The first is rewiring fiscal systems. This includes progressive and wealth-based taxation and ecological fiscal reform. The essential questions are not just how much revenue states raise, but from whom, for what purposes, and with what redistributive and ecological effects. A highly progressive tax system is not merely a technical instrument, but a moral and political one.
The second is repurposing monetary policy, credit allocation and public investment. Finance must be treated more explicitly as a public utility. Credit creation, public banks, central banks and investment institutions should be aligned with social and ecological goals, rather than left primarily to speculative or extractive priorities. Who gets credit and on what terms is a question of democracy and justice.
The third is reshaping the productive fabric of the economy. This means expanding purpose-driven enterprises, social and solidarity economy institutions, cooperatives, public‑interest business models and more democratic forms of ownership. Poverty eradication is not only about transfers after the fact; it is about who owns, who governs, who benefits, and whose needs the economy is designed to serve.
Across all three areas, the common thread is clear: poverty eradication cannot be left to trickle‑down growth. It requires deliberate institutional design, redistribution and democratic control over the economy.
Communities acting beyond growth
One of the most hopeful aspects of this work is that many communities are no longer waiting for growth to trickle down. They are building their own systems to keep wealth local and support their most vulnerable members.
In the local and solidarity economy, worker-owned cooperatives and social enterprises aim for fair wages and community service rather than maximising profit for distant shareholders. Community land trusts take land off the speculative market to keep housing permanently affordable. Mutual aid networks and time banks meet people’s needs outside the formal growth economy, relying on reciprocity instead of cash. Participatory budgeting gives communities a direct say in how public funds are allocated.
The Roadmap to Eradicate Poverty Beyond Growth is not just a blueprint for governments, but equally an invitation to be more honest about causality. Poverty is not inevitable. It is produced. If we stopped trying to “fix” the poor and started fixing the economy, the first rules that Earth4All would rewrite are those that hard‑wire growth‑dependence and concentrate power – redesigning fiscal, financial and ownership systems so that eradicating poverty, fairly redistributing power and resources, respecting human rights and staying within planetary boundaries become the foundational purpose of economic systems.
